Skotison

Skotison (sko’-ti-son): Purposeful obscurity.

The stuff is on the way. I can’t believe you asked me “What stuff?” You know damn well what it is. Oh, you’re joking, That’s good, I should’ve known you’d never say what it is. It’s the kind of stuff that we don’t say. You know we’ve been hauling this stuff for years—through cities, and small towns and over country roads. We’ve delivered enough of this stuff to fill two football fields plus a huge train station..

Here we are! Cliff’s regional warehouse. I’ll get the watchman to open it up. Then, we can get a couple forklifts fired up. Ok! We’re in. Let’s get moving. We’d been doing this for about five years, when Cliff’s signed on for deliveries. We deliver a truckload of stuff here every month, and they use it all before we deliver the next load.

To tell you the truth, me and Ed don’t know for sure what the stuff is., “stuff” is just about all you can call it. I have developed an obsession to know what the stuff is. I asked my boss once and he told me me: “Keep askin’ and you’re fired.” I thought told Ed I was going to steal a packet on our next run, open it, and find out what the hell the stuff is. He freaked out and told me the last guy that tried that disappeared and never came back. The rumor was he had been murdered and burned.

The next day I put a packet under the truck when we unloaded—I duct taped it behind the rear bumper. On the way back to the factory, I told Ed I had to take a leak. I got out of the rruck, untaped the packet, and hid it by the side of the road. Then, we continued on our way. When we got back to the factory (Big Stuff Inc.), I punched out, hopped in my car and took off.. I picked up the packet and took to my daughter’s high school chemistry teacher for analysis. Two days later he called me. He told me the substance is “Corbomaxalotoninate” or “Corbo.” It is used as a vitamin supplement for pet fish, hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, mice and other small pets. It is harmless to humans.

I went to the boss and told him I knew what “Stuff” is and asked why he does not just put “pet vitamins” on it. He told me Stuff’s customers package it themselves, like “Cliff’s Pet vitamin Supplements.” We want to help Cliff’s maintain the fiction that they manufacture Stuff. The same is true of CVS, Hannaford, and everybody else we sell our product to.” He told me it’s just business and I better keep mu mouth shut or I would be killed, that Ed was eager to do it, if he’d get a pay raise.

I immediately drove to my local Cliff’s and poked around the shelves. Sure enough! There it was: “Cliff’s Pet Vitamin Supplement.” It was true.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

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